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Medication offer

Oliver is still doing well on his new medication, so is off gabapentin and, as the new drug is itself a diuretic, he's also off Zitac (cimetadine). So I have 77 x 100mg gabapentin and 45 x 100mg Zitac going free to a good home. No charge, but a donation to Rupert's Fund would be appreciated.

PM me (with a postal address) if you would like one or both drugs, and it will be first come first served.

Of course, I know Kate's kind and generous offer will go to someone whose vet or neurologist already has their dog on a prescription for these drugs, just before some people get their already twisted knickers twisted even tighter (that must be why the voices get so shrill sometimes ).

Hi I just wanted to say what a kind offer this is and a great idea. I recently tried to give some medication that my elderly cat had been using to someone in need. (My cat unfortunately passed away at nearly 19 years of age) I found it very difficult to do as my vets did not seem very interested in passing it on to either someone in need or the local cats protection league who I often see there. With hindsight I wish I had not given it to them and contacted a local cats rescue myself! I have my suspicions that they just threw the medication away once I left the office!!
Hope the medication goes to someone who needs it and Im pleased that your dog is doing well on his new medication!

Thanks for making that clear, Karlin - I should have said it myself, but was too busy reading the piece of paper with numbers and dosages on it! Obviously the gabapentin and zitac must go to a dog who has already had these drugs prescribed, and it would be sensible to mention to your vet why you haven't asked for your usual prescription - but at least it saves you the cost of a prescription for a few weeks, as well as the medication, and every little helps!

When Oliver was first on gabapentin, a friend put me in touch with a friend of hers whose SM dog had just been put to sleep for other reasons and wanted to pass on some unused gabapentin. She was really pleased that her dog could help another dog. Thankfully, Oliver is still very active, but there's no point in the pills just sitting in the cupboard!

With hindsight I wish I had not given it to them and contacted a local cats rescue myself!

That's a good thing to keep in mind for the future. Rescues, especially larger rescues, will almost always gladly take leftover medications for standard conditions, or things like medicated shampoos. Every good rescue I know works closely with their vets -- usually several of them -- and would be well familiar with the meds they commonly can use (eg heart meds, painkillers, and so on). Most have vets who trust them to do vaccinations and so on as well and know they can responsibly and knowledgably manage basic and common pet medications.

Something like gabapentin would probably never be used by a rescue, nor zitak -- much better going to someone who is giving these things to their dogs already.

Having to take gabapentin myself and break my huge 600mg pills in half to get them down, I'm surprised how well dogs swallow them - it tastes really horrible. But 77 at one go might defeat even a dog!

Unused medicines up to one year old can also be sent out to a vet hospital in Katmandu in Nepal, who do all the usual treatments but whose neutering programme has saved the lives of many dogs - the government tends to put down poison when the stray dog population gets too large. Contact for the hospital is Juliette Cunliffe at juliettecunliffe@yahoo.co.uk - she can put you in touch with the UK committee for the hospital, so that you don't have to pay postage to Nepal!